


Crosswords and Vanilla Coke

by goldensteps



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Amy Santiago, Bisexuality, Fluff, Peraltiago fluff, bi amy, bi99, married peraltiago - Freeform, straight girl crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 21:28:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17609327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensteps/pseuds/goldensteps
Summary: Amy’s a member of the New York City Police Academy and that is the biggest priority in her life, followed only by flirting with fellow recruit Olivia. She waits by the door in the mornings, wordlessly handing Amy a coffee and falling into step with her, nodding and giving the occasional grin as as Amy chatters on and on in her flustered, lovesick way.aka bi amyyyyy through the years (name one straight mike schur character i dare ya).





	Crosswords and Vanilla Coke

**Author's Note:**

> i am a one trick pony when it comes to these bi stories i guess. this one is, once again, messyyyy but if i didnt nut up and make myself post it it would sit in my drafts forevaaaa. anyway this one goes out to lara for being an amy-lovin' lesbian jesus, and to lina for reading over my draft and just generally being the sweetest and most supportive fic sis ever <3 (and also to that one commenter who noticed my bi amy in Dessert's, u a real one thank u love)

Amy’s seven and in love with a girl from recess. Second graders are old enough to know about these things. Her name is Tricia and her pockets are usually full of gummy worms, and she shares without being asked. They play scientists and explorers and airplane pilots and president, and Tricia doesn’t call Amy bossy like most people do. Her hands are sticky but when she grabs Amy’s and says “C’mon Captain Santiago! The ship is sinking, we have to organize a rescue,” grinning and showing off her missing front tooth, Amy doesn’t mind. 

Amy’s eleven and in love with captain of the academic team. The rival academic team, to be precise. He has floppy brown hair and pretty blue eyes, and she can’t help but notice what a good listener he is during discussion questions. He also doesn’t buzz in before he knows the answer, a habit she can’t seem to break her own players from doing. If he were just a hair faster, he’d have her beat, but he doesn’t even seem to care. Once she thought she saw him wink at her after she crushed it on a particularly difficult question on ancient mesopotamia, but she tells herself it’s a strategy to throw her off her game and take the lead. Still though, the second best part of every meet (after winning, obviously) is when they ~~get to~~ have to shake each other’s hand and say “good game”. She can feel herself blushing all the way home.

Amy’s thirteen and in love with her best friend. And trapped between the overwhelming fear of anyone finding out (especially said best friend), and the desperate, longing, hopefulness that maybe, possibly, Clare could feel the same way. 

Clare’s parents are religious. Uber religious. Old-school irish catholic, the whole nine yards. Homosexuality, or, in Amy’s case, bisexuality (the label that seems to feel like the best fit, at least based on her research) is Public Enemy Number One, second only to maybe divorce, premarital sex, or people who take communion despite having never been confirmed. They have a lot of Public Enemy Number Ones. 

That doesn’t keep Amy from feeling like all the air in her personal bubble has been electrified when Clare’s around though. Or from wanting to kiss her more than she’s ever wanted to kiss anyone in her life when she sees her in her confirmation dress. Or from feeling like her limbs don’t really belong to her when Clare brushes against them during study hall. 

They meet up every day before school in the cafeteria, splitting pop tarts and chocolate milk and “Goodmorning, I love you”s. They call each other every night, and talk about art and music and the dream of buying an old Volkswagen Van and taking the ultimate road trip senior year, to see the Grand Canyon and all the national parks. End every call with “Goodnight, I love you.” and a secret squeal into her pillow on Amy’s end.

It’s a sleepover in early May after a year or so of this when it happens. Clare smuggles over some of her dad’s old records, and they’re together on the floor of Amy’s room, bundled in blankets and listening to The White Album. Amy’s head on Clare’s shoulder and Clare’s thumb brushing soft circles on Amy’s knee. Clare leans over and kisses her during Happiness Is A Warm Gun, and Amy’s. Heart. Bursts. 

She pulls back and grins at her, tucking her hair behind her ears, and Clare looks scared to fucking death, but determined, and she leans in and does it again. Amy has to force herself to stop smiling so she can kiss back.

Amy falls asleep sometime around Blackbird and when she wakes up the next morning Clare and the record are gone. Her parents have to pick her up early for church, and Amy kinda wishes she’d woken her up so they could’ve had coffee or something before she left. But she can’t find it in her to be bummed. She has a _girlfriend_. Clare loves her _back_. Everything is so so so beautiful.

Until Monday. When she eats pop tarts alone at breakfast because Clare is nowhere to be seen. When she desperately tries to catch her eye across the room in first period, and Clare looks the other direction. when she speedwalks to catch up with her in the halls, and Clare pretends not to hear her. 

She calls her that night. Her mother says she isn’t feeling well. Says that she can’t talk right now. But Amy Santiago is no idiot, and she knows how to take a hint.

The closest thing to closure she gets is an angry encounter in a hallway closet and the words “I don’t know HOW to talk to you anymore. It’s fine if you’re. Whatever this is. But I’m going to marry a man.”

If she hadn’t been crying she’d have spat back something about how Clare kissed her first, or how she doesn’t know how to fucking say a hail mary either but she still tried to understand at Clare’s confirmation because that’s what friends do, or that she didn’t even say anything about getting married, she never had any fucking desire to marry Clare. She just wanted to feel less alone.

Anyway, she goes to the office and calls home, makes up some bullshit about period cramps or something, and her dad picks her up, wordlessly handing her that morning’s crossword and a Vanilla Coke as she climbs in the car. She feels marginally better.

Amy’s seventeen and in love with a bad boy. Her first real relationship. His name is Jamie and he wears leather jackets and flannel shirts and glasses that remind her of her grandfather. He smokes cloves. He can quote Hemingway. He knows all about underground bands and literary movements and everything the government is doing Capital W Wrong. He sneaks her into art museums and symphonies and the jump in her stomach both at the excitement of breaking the rules and holding his hand almost makes up for how moody he gets when she disagrees with him. Or the constant talking down to. Or the time she corrected his grammar and he gave her a look that made her feel about two inches tall, and coldly declared that “Nobody likes a know it all.”

She dumps him after 8 months and an argument during which he calls Dickinson “a stupid whiny dyke” and maybe she should cry over him, but she doesn’t.

Amy’s a member of the New York City Police Academy and that is the biggest priority in her life, followed only by flirting with fellow recruit Olivia. This girl is badass in a real way, a way Jaimie could never touch. Strong and kind and smart and solemn. She waits by the door in the mornings, wordlessly handing Amy a coffee and falling into step with her, nodding and giving the occasional grin as as Amy chatters on and on in her flustered, lovesick way. 

They kiss for the first time on New Years Eve, which can be partially accredited to five-drink-weirdly-confident Amy, but mostly Olivia’s general brand of austere ballsiness. Amy pulls back and blinks, and Olivia gives her a breathy laugh.

“You are. Such a bad fucking dancer, Santiago.”

She’s got a pixie cut that Amy lives to run her hands through, warm brown eyes that absolutely sparkle when she laughs, and a dignified, powerful sort of energy that commands respect. Olivia is the type of person who nobody will think twice about making captain, sexism and homophobia aside. She commands attention without having to beg. She’s so much of who Amy wants to be, and yet she looks at her like she’s the sun, holds her like she’s something precious, makes her cum like it’s her one and only job in life. 

They’re together for years. Through meet-the-parents (Olivia’s mom loves Amy’s neat-freak-tendencies, Amy’s dad says no one makes better coffee than his daughter’s girlfriend), moving in together (Olivia organizes spices into sweet and savory while Amy alphabetizes), their beat-cop days (coming home bone-tired, Olivia massaging her shoulders while she goes on tangents about traffics violations, hot baths in which they both doze off and wake up pruny in cold water), and when Olivia proposes, Amy has every reason in the world to say yes. But she can’t.

Amy’s not usually the type to mourn breakups, but this one leaves her in bed for nearly a week, surviving on cookie dough ice cream and period dramas. By the time she’s seen just about every adaptation of Little Women she can stomach, and mentally berated herself using every synonym of “dumbass” she knows, she doesnt recognize the girl in the mirror anymore. And she refuses to live like that.

After a vigorous cleaning of the apartment and an impulsive hair appointment in which she leaves with bangs, she grants herself a new beginning. Because Amy Santiago is a kickass cop and she doesn’t let her identity get wrapped up in anyone else, no matter how safe it felt in their arms.

She makes detective within the year. 

And gets partnered up almost immediately with a curly-haired, arrogant, pain in her ass. Everything in her needs to be better than him, needs to out-do, out-perform, out-work him. The competitive fire she’s always had burns brighter than ever before and when shes chasing down perps and trading smart-ass one liners she feels more like herself than she has in years.

Teddy is an easy placeholder. She knows losing Teddy would never wreck her the way losing Olivia did.

But God, it’s so so difficult to make herself content with evenings of pilsners and war documentaries and missionary sex in which she almost never finishes, when a day at work is full of orange soda and ridiculous bets and laughing until her ribs hurt.

Kissing Jake feels so goddamn _right_.

Amy Santiago’s a sergeant. And in love with her best friend, for real this time. Jake needs her, in a way no one else has ever made her feel needed. She’s not too much, too pushy, too bossy, too loud, too nervous, too high strung. He doesn’t expect her to shrink. Never asks her to pipe down and agree with him. Never stops bragging about his “brilliant wife.” Never passes up an opportunity to marvel at the wonder that is Amy Santiago. And when she sees the way he absolutely adores her, she feels pretty goddamn marvelous, too.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading!!! comments and/or kudos mean the world, make my day, and guarentee u my Eternal Love :-')))


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